Helpful Information from the Southern Title Web site.

Newtown Title Agency conducts research in the land records and real estate tax records to determine if we are willing to issue a title insurance commitment or policy insuring an owner's legal right of ownership of land and/or a lender's legal right to the land under a mortgage or deed of trust. The research includes an examination of the deeds, wills, or lists of heirs by which the current owner and prior owners received their right of ownership or title, as well as an examination of mortgages/deeds of trust, easements, covenants and restrictions, judgment liens, financing statement liens, recorded mechanic's liens, real estate tax liens, storm water fee liens, nuisance abatement liens, and other recorded liens or matters adversely affecting the land owner's right of ownership and the lender's rights under a mortgage/deed of trust. The results of the research are used to determine if we are willing to issue a title insurance commitment or policy to an owner or lender and, if so, what documents we will require to be executed and recorded prior to issuing a title insurance policy and what exceptions to coverage will appear on the title insurance policy.

Matters which cannot be determined by title research but which are covered by a title insurance policy include forged documents, fraudulent documents, erroneous representations in documents, the competence or capacity of someone signing a document, errors in indexing documents in the land records, clerical errors in recording documents, and unrecorded documents.